At the return of Troy, Odysseus went by the country of the Cicones, for the
region of the Lotophagi, for the island of the Cyclopes, for the island of
the god Aeolus (Aiolos) and the country of the Lestrygones before reaching
the island Aeaea (Aiaie), of flat configuration and very woody, where the
goddess Circe (Kírkê) lived, Odyssey X, 135. Odysseus and his
partners after eating a big deer and lot of wine, they observed that the sun
was high and motionless, so that they could not determine where it has risen
or where the sunset was. Now, we know that may have happened the day when
the Sun begin to shine permanently over the Arctic Circle during the period
named “Midnight Sun”, what it evidences that they were in the
arctic regions.

Circe

It confirms this appreciation the news transmitted by Strabo, I, 1, 7 that
according to the philosopher Crates in one of the regions visited by Odysseus,
“there is a kind of estuary or gulf that views from the winter tropic
towards the South Pole”.

As Homer did not mentioned clearly this estuary,
we must suppose that so exact information should have been known through Pytheas,
so we now know that it corresponds exactly to the current Western Fjord (“Vestern
Fjorden”) of Norway, from where we would have to conclude that the hydrological
phenomenon that Pytheas called “marine lung” faithfully corresponds
to the whirl of Maelstrom. Fig.1, taken from “Atlas Mundial Encarta
1993-1996”, Microsoft Corporation.

See photography in the home page
of this Internet website, taken from “Enciclopedia El Mar” (“Encyclopaedy
The Sea”).

1.- Map of the Western Fjord of
Norway.

Another reference to the Midnight Sun, can be found in the Song X, 82-86 that
it refers to the possibility that the shepherds won double wage because the
days were endless. It also makes us to think that all this happened in the
arctic countries, the supposed confinement of the winds in a wineskin by the
god Aeolus, because, today, we know that in the arctic regions unpredictable
changes of the orientation of the stormy winds take place, even arriving to
sudden deaf calms of brief length. The same thing we can say of the very reiterated
cited by the goddess Aurora because, undoubtly, the northern auroras constitute
the most grandiose view that takes place in our globe. The northern auroras
can not be seen in the Mediterranean.

Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights

Goddess Aurora's Fingers

8.- THE MAELSTRÖM WOULD BE THE OCEAN OR WHIRL LOCATED BETWEEN THE WANDERING
ROCKS AND CLOSE TO SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS

Circe ordered Odysseus at Hades to consult Tiresias (Teiresias), after having
gone by the Ocean, contiguous to its island Aeaea, Od., X, 508.

After Odysseus
had visited the Hades he returned to the island of Circe who recommended him
to take cautions when coming closer to some islands where mysterious Sirens
(seirênes) were listened that we suppose it would be howling of the
violent winds that reign in the polar regions. Circe also warned Odysseus
that next he would have to choose between very dangerous two dangerous paths
.

Aerial Photographic of the Maelström

The first one framed supposedly among promontories supposed as “Wandering”,
Od., c. XII, v. 61, because in the reality it is the whirlwind or whirl, at
the moment called Maelström, the one that advances slowly as it lowers
the height of the tide. Those promontories correspond to the current Lofotodden
Cape and to the Vaeroy island that close the Western Fjord of Norway. See
fig. 2, taken from “The Nautical Almanac”.

2.- Lofotodden Cape and Vaeroy
Island.
Homer used in Od., XIIth Song,
v. 68, the Greek word ,,
“Thyellai”, to refer to this whirlwind or whirl, although in the
c. V, v. 174, he used it as synonym the Greek expression ,
“Laitma Thalásses”, to mention to the depths of the sea
for where it supposed that the waters fell into the center of the Earth so
later to appear in the form of springs or sources of the rivers.

He also represented
the danger of this whirl when telling in the C. XII, v.69 that previously
only the ship Argos of Jason had survived of falling in it because the goddess
Hera that loved him, induced him to tack it back,
(pareplo), taking him away from its murderous suction.

The word
“laitma” has also been translated in opportunities for “abyss”, from the Greek
“abyssos” (“bottomless”), expresion that was not used by Homer. As Hesiod was
not able to understand the reach of the homeric expression because in Greece
nobody knew the above-mentioned sea phenomenon, he ended up calling it
“Chaos” (, “Kháos”) in his work
“Theogony” (vv. 116, 123, 632, 700, 740 and 814).

It
would be easy to identify this whirlpool with the Tartarus of the ancient
nordic legends and twice quoted by Homer in the Iliad. Zeus threatened to the
gods who would like to side with the Trojans or with the Greeks, to throw them
“to the gloomy Tartarus at the bottom of the barathrum which is deepest
underground, where the iron gates and the bronze threshold, as far under the
Hades as the sky is above the ground”, C. VIII, vv. 13-16.

Further on, Homer too mentioned the Tartarus in the confines of the Earth, C.
VIII, vv. 478-481. It is possible that, in the subsequent centuries, the word
“Tartarus” had given rise to the name “Tartessos”, applied to sumerged ruins
located at Cádiz, Spain.

As for the second path suggested by Circe, it would be among the current Rost
island and the islet located at 900 meters to the SO. from it. In the first
one the monster Scylla inhabited, v. 84 that with its six heads caught its
preys. In the neighboring islet, the monster Charybdis, v 104, was on, that
three times a day absorbed vomited the waters. A similar phenomenon will have
been able to observe the modern tourists in diverse costs of the world, because
the pockets of air caught in the hollows of the rocks is pressed by the waters
when the tides go up so that this water it is forced to be slip violently
through small cracks formed among the same rocks. In the Chilean coast, in
the port of Lebu, “la Piedra del Toro” (“The Stone of the
Bull”) throws water in the same way and in the Gulf of Chiloé,
estuary of Reloncaví, three tides also take place a day in point denominated
Ralun.

Estuary of Reloncaví

9.- THRINACIA, THE ISLAND OF THE COWS OF THE SUN, CORRESPONDS TO THE CURRENT
LANDEGODE ISLAND

After having gone Odysseus by the three dangers indicated by Circe, he had
to navigate straight to the east until finding in the continental coast the
Thrinacia island (XI, 227) with its “three caps” due to their
triangular form. It was a low and very grassy island on which numerous flocks
of cows and sheep inhabited . These characteristics correspond exactly to
the current island of Landegode whose original name, “Landit Goda”,
means in old Norwegian “Good Land”. See the Web page http://home.enter.vg/landegode/facts.htm
In spite of the prohibition by Odysseus, his partners killed many of the cows
so appreciated by the god Hyperion (XII, 359) that enjoyed when seeing them
vigorous every time after the six months of darkness.

We estimate that these heads would
belong to the species of the aurochs (Bos Taurus Primigenius), very well acclimatized
in this area and distinguishable to have a wide forehead, two big horns, big
hooves and very thick skin that allowed them to advance without being swamped
along the humid soils that were formed when the winter snow was gone by taking
advantage of the most tender and nutritious grasses. Because of their very
thick, skin they could defend themselves from the immense quantity of mosquitoes
that swarmed around trying to suck their blood. Perhaps when breeding in very
closed consanguinity, anomalies were appearing in their reproductive that
ended up to kill them. Homer, from there, mentioned about their difficult
reproduction, Odyssey, XII, 130.
The fertility of this island coincided with the concept of “fertile
continent”, ,
(“eribólakos epeiroio”), mentioned by Homer in the XIII
song, 235, when Odysseus asked to a young shepherd, disguise of Athena, if
that earth was a simple island or a cape of a fertile continent. That fertility
surprised Homer because in other regions they would have been simple taigas
or tundras at the same height.